


Witch Hunt

by AnagramRMX



Series: The Power of Three (Plus Two) [3]
Category: Charmed, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:29:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnagramRMX/pseuds/AnagramRMX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has been keeping his powers a secret, and Dean's having a rough time just controlling his. But when a witch starts to kill off the bullies at Sam's high school, they have to suck it up and hunt her down with their cousins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witch Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Alright, so he's the third chapter, which is the first one that I've written without a script. This is mostly because I couldn't come up with a way for Victor to encourage Dean's story arc (I did keep that episode in, I just moved it to slot 5). I tried to give it more of a 'Supernatural' feel than previous chapters, so there's not really a happy ending.  
> This chapter has guest stars: Bobby (because I just couldn’t leave him until episode 16), Rex, Hannah, Alan (because I needed Prue to have another coworker), and Laurie (You get serious points if you can recognize him just from this chapter)  
> Episodes 4 and 5 are already finished and will be up as soon as I read through them a few times and/or get them beta’d.

It was dark outside the mall as Jenae strolled to her car, shopping bags in both hands. It had been a good night, and she couldn’t wait to get to school the next morning to show off the blouse she had bought.

The parking garage was brightly lit enough that she wasn’t too worried about her safety. After all, they always warned you about the dim ones, the ones that if you walked ahead, you wouldn’t see an attacker hiding under your car. For the most part, she could see everything, though, so she doubted something could get her.

What she didn’t know, though, was that you didn’t have to be right next to someone for them to attack you.

Jenae didn’t notice at first, but with each step, something began to feel wrong with her legs. She made a face, pausing for a second to balance, and take stock of it. As she stilled, her knees began to ache, her shoulders and torso feeling too heavy. Not knowing what was wrong, she kept walking.

After a few more moments, though, a shock ran through her calf, as if the bones in her leg were splintering. She staggered, letting out a quiet whimper.

She stepped again to catch up with her other leg, and a full on crack shot through it.

She fell to the ground with a shriek, and she called out into the garage. “Is anyone there? Anyone? Please!”

She positioned her arms to push herself at least into a sitting position, but the second her palms began pressing against the asphalt, there was a rush of excruciating pain on the sides of her arms.

With a scream, she tried to move again, but when she looked over to her arms, she saw bone, sticking out of her arms from the wrist to the elbow. The joint had been ripped apart and blood was starting to run everywhere.

 

(-:-)

 

On the other side of San Francisco, a hooded figure chanted as they mixed the blood and herbs. The figure couldn’t hear the screams of the girl they were killing, but then again, they didn’t care.

 

(-:-)

 

When Dean pulled up to the garage the next morning, he tried to keep thoughts of explosions and blood out of his head. It was his third day back at work since he had received his magical powers, and since he had nearly blown off a co-worker’s head.

He’d taken the majority of the last week off, trying to learn to control his powers so he wouldn’t be so much of a danger. He hadn’t made much progress, but there was only so much time you could take off before the boss got suspicious. Thankfully, the past two days had been calm enough that he hadn’t had to worry about accidentally making something explode.

At the same time, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He parked the Impala in back with the other guys’ cars, and walked inside to the familiar noises of cars and mechanical work.

A few of the guys hollered at him in greeting as he ran up to the punch card system, clocking in before walking to the office to figure out what he was supposed to do for the day.

When he came back out, he walked over to the car that had been brought in that morning, and wasn’t surprised to see his co-worker Eric sitting there, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Eric had been out since Dean got back, but for legitimate reasons. His wife had had a baby on Sunday night, and he’d taken some sick days to stay at the hospital with her. Half the shop had been waiting for him to get back to hear the good news, and settle on the shop-wide betting pool.

“Boy?” Dean asked, grinning a little.

The other man nodded, pulling a picture excitedly from his wallet. Dean didn’t make fun of him, knowing that some of the other guys had already taken care of that for him. “Yup, Reese Wallace, six pounds eight ounces,” he chattered, excitedly, showing the picture off proudly, while there was the slightest chuckled from behind them.

Dean rolled his eyes when another guy, Jayme, walked up, and slung an arm over Dean’s shoulder. “You know what that means don’t ya?”

“I lost the bet?”

Jayme grinned. “Yup.”

Eric rolled his eyes. “Let up, Jayme,” He said, sounding annoyed. “You’ve been bragging since you got in. It’s time to stop already.”

“Hey, please allow me to bask in the glory for a few more minutes,” Jayme protested, before leaning back against the car Dean was supposed to be working on while Dean lifted up the hood.

Eric just rolled his eyes again, before looking over at Dean. “So hey, meant to ask you when you got back, why were you out last week?”

Mentally, Dean swore. He’d been through this almost all of Monday morning with the guys that had been there. Dean was a pretty new employee, so it wasn’t like he had a ton of sick days to burn, but he was adamant that it hadn’t been safe for him to be out last week. Frankly, he still didn’t think it was safe to be in the shop _today_ , but it wasn’t like he had a choice.

“I was sick,” he said, not elaborating as he leaned over the car to start playing with the fuse box.

Eric raised an eyebrow. “Sick sick, or just-“

“Trust me, Eric, you really don’t wanna know,” he grumbled. The excuse he had given to the boss was explosive diarrhea. It had shut him up, but the other guys didn’t need to hear the nasty details.

Eric seemed to take his word for it. Jayme just shook his head. “Whatever, man,” he grumbled, before walking back off to do whatever he should have been doing.

A little huff came out of Dean’s nostrils as he kept pecking at the fuses with a testing instrument, trying to drown out the sounds of the shop around him so he could concentrate.

There was a bang suddenly on the other side of the shop.

Dean had to force himself to stay still. His first instinct was to spin around, to run towards the sound and make sure everything was okay, to make sure there wasn’t a monster or a gun involved. Since he had gotten his powers, though, all he could think about when he tried to execute were images of trucks blowing to smithereens whenever he got jumpy or tense.

He gripped the sides of the car tightly, forcing himself to not jump around lest his powers flare up. Piper had suggested some stupid breathing exercise, so for a few moments, he tried that.

When that started to feel stupid three seconds later, he slowly let himself stand up straight, keeping his arms stiffly at his sides as he turned to look.

Another mechanic had knocked a tool box off of a shelf.

He grumbled a few swear words about getting worked up over nothing before turning back to the car.

 

(-:-)

 

Sam wasn’t entirely surprised when he got to school and his friend Brady started checking him over for signs of trauma. For the past two weeks, Sam had been coming to school with massive headaches. Brady kept telling him to go to the doctor; Sam insisted that he was okay.

Granted, Sam did have a headache. It had slowly started to build since he had woken up, just like any other morning because of his newfound abilities. Just like his brother and cousins, he had gotten magic powers a little more than two weeks ago, but he had been keeping it to himself. Prue had been freaking out over finding a new job, and Piper and Dean had only recently started to stop stressing over their own powers. He had decided he shouldn’t distress them with the news that he had powers too.

But that didn’t mean his powers weren’t a problem. They had been giving him headaches so bad that he could hardly get through the day, and plaguing his sleep with nightmares. They were starting to scare him, and he had wanted to let his family know every day. But now that they were two weeks into their time as being witches, he just wasn’t sure how he would tell them.

Considering he had gotten through the past three days without incident (read: keeling over on a sidewalk, which was an incident Prue and Dean didn’t know about either), Brady didn’t ask about his health this morning. He had something much more important to discuss.

“Did you hear what happened?”

Sam raised an eyebrow, falling in next to Brady so that he could get to his locker. “What do you mean?”

“Dude, something happened to Jenae Smith last night. Whole school’s been talking about it.”

Hearing the name, Sam wasn’t too surprised to hear that everyone knew. Jenae was one of the most popular girls in school, as well as one of the meanest. Sam couldn’t feel too sorry about whatever had happened, but something didn’t feel right about the conversation.

“What happened?” he asked.

“She was found dead in a parking garage.”

Sam practically froze in his shoes.

“What?!”

“I’m serious,” Brady repeated. “The cops were apparently swarming at the mall last night. Some guy found her body, and like, half of her bones were jutting out of her skin and everything. Even her ribs were broken so that they were sticking out of her chest like a Venus fly trap.”

Sam rolled his eyes and as they got to his locker, he rounded on Brady. “Alright, no _way_ you know that for sure. The cops wouldn’t have released pictures of that _ever_.”

Brady put his hands up. “I’m just repeating what I heard,” he said in his defense. “But even if the thing about the bones isn’t true, something _did_ happen. A cop came in to talk to the principal, and Amber and Anya are biting peoples’ heads off over it.”

“Are you talking about what happened to Jenae?”

They both looked down to the locker caddy-cornered to Sam’s, where a girl in a bright purple, flower-pattered shirt was tucking a book into her bag. She was shorter than both of them, and a little bulky, and she was wearing thick rimmed, black glasses.

“Aha!” Brady said in triumph as the girl stood up, and he pointed at her as if her statement proved what he had been saying. “I told you something happened!”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Hey, Tina,” he greeted the girl. “And yeah, did what Brady said happened really…” he trailed off, doubting he would get any real information from high school kids.

He had never really participated in the interrogation portion of a monster-hunt with his brother and dad, but he knew that it was too soon for any real information to have gotten out. The news couldn’t have covered it yet, and the police wouldn’t have had time to complete their investigation. Any first hand information, from a student who _could_ have been there, had probably been lost in a sea of gossip.

Tina shrugged a little. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been hearing about it all morning, though. And I really doubt her harpies would be letting people talk about it unless it was true…”

Brady snorted a little at the word _harpies_ , and down the hall they heard the tell-tell voices of two of the school’s biggest bitches terrorizing the other students.

With a shake of his head, Sam turned to his locker and twisted the dial so he could get in. “You’d think they would be a bit more solemn about it,” he said, not impressed by the girls.

“Oh, but what better way to mourn for their best friend than to continue practicing her favorite activity?” Brady commented.

Sam snorted, only for a sharp voice to call him away from his locker.

“You think this is funny?!”

Brady, Tina, and Sam all turned away from the lockers to see two girls standing next to them. Sam inwardly wanted to groan, because that saying of speaking of the devil was true. Amber and Anya had appeared.

The one who had spoken was Amber, the taller of the two with long, curly brown hair. Anya was a petite blonde, but, according to the rumors, she could be violent and vicious.

Being that Sam was a guy, he was not one of the girls’ usual targets, and he had always been thankful for that, for their sakes if not his. After all, even if he wasn’t as avid of a hunter as his father and brother were, they had still taught him how to fight. He didn’t want to have to hit a normal teenage girl the same way he would hit a werewolf.

“What’s funny?” he countered, trying to play it dumb so they would just scream at him and walk away.

Amber made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. “You are such insensitive jerks!” she spat. “My best friend is dead and all you can do is joke!”

“So rude,” Anya followed up, sounding just as whiny as Amber did.

Sam put up his hands. “We weren’t even talking about Jenae.”

Anya didn’t look convinced. “Liar!” she blurted. “All of you are over here gabbing about it just like the rest of the school. Jenae _so_ deserves more respect than this!””

“If you want to respect her stop yelling at us and talk to a teacher about having a memorial service,” Tina said, her voice low, but not sounding angry. She just wanted them to go away.

Sam saw Anya stop, and actually think about the idea for a second. Amber on the other hand just rounded on Tina. “Oh, like you really mean that,” she hissed. “You-you’re happy Jen is dead. You hated her, you ugly cow!”

Tina looked upset by the comment. “Wha-no!” she said, cowering just a bit.

“Liar!” Amber blurted, reaching out and grabbing Tina’s backpack. “You were always arguing with her in gym-“

Sam’s hand darted out, grabbing Amber’s wrist hard. “Hey! Leave her alone!” he said flatly. “She didn’t do anything!”

Amber’s mouth opened again to snarl something at him, but he just put more pressure on her wrist. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but Tina looked terrified, and Sam had been raised better to let his friends get picked on. After having his fingers dig into her wrist for long enough, Amber eventually squeaked, and dropped Tina’s bag. Sam let go.

Amber grabbed her wrist with the other hand, and glared daggers at him. “You jerks!” she blurted before scrambling off with Anya at her heels.

Sam sighed, and picked up Tina’s bag before handing it back to her.

The three of them stared for a moment. Brady eventually whistled, and muttered something along the lines of _bitches be crazy._ Sam just watched them go, and slowly realized that his headache was getting worse.

 

(-:-)

 

Prue walked into Buckland’s Auction House far more confidently than she had the last time she had been there. The Friday previously, she had a less than stellar interview. Even so, she had gotten a call back and they sounded anxious to have her come in and demonstrate her skills.

The receptionist quickly recognized her, and shuffled her into the back where her future boss was waiting. Buckland Auction house was under new management, and was receiving some much needed renovations. What was going to be the main auction room had tarps hanging all over the place, with ladders and paint cans scattered around. She was surprised that they were doing this in a construction zone and not in her boss’ office, but she wasn’t going to say anything.

Rex Buckland, the new owner of the auction house and the man that had interviewed her, was standing in the middle of the room, waiting. He smiled at her in greeting.

“Prue, thank you for coming back.”

“Well, thanks for having me back,” Prue replied, “although I must admit I didn’t expect it.”

“I told you I was interested and I am,” Rex responded, turning so that he was looking at a few podiums sitting in the middle of the room. Each of them had an art piece sitting on it. “But first, I’d like to test your expertise, if you don’t mind. See how good you really are.” He gestured behind them and a woman with curly red hair walked up with a sour expression on her face. “This is Hannah Webster, one of our assistant specialists,” he introduced. “This is Prue Halliwell.”

Prue held out a hand to shake with the woman. “Nice to meet you,” she said, though Hannah didn’t even respond with a smile.

Rex directed them both to a portrait on his left. “Please,” he said to Prue. “Tell us about this piece.”

Prue glanced at it for a moment, looking over it appraisingly. She definitely recognized the style, could even place the name and the artist. Yet, something wasn’t quite right, and she almost smiled.

“Well, Madonna of the Meadow,” she started, “Giovanni Bellini, 16th century. Fabulous piece. Worth three, four million dollars easily if it wasn’t a copy.”

“What makes you think it’s a copy?” asked Hanna, raising an eyebrow.

Looking back to the painting, she waved a hand. “Too well preserved, no yellowing. Besides, the frame support is in pine, and Italian Painters used poplar back then.”

“Huh,” Rex responded, sounding impressed before moving to the next piece. “What about this one?”

This one was a sculpture.

“Degas,” she answered quickly. “Actually this one was the only sculpture he exhibited himself…”

Hannah was rolling her eyes at Prue as she shifted her hips and knocked into a ladder nearby. A paint can spilled over directly above Prue and Rex blurted, “Watch out!”

Prue looked up, and pushed her hands up quickly, feeling the power run through her to block the paint. Her magic stopped the paint before it hit her, directing it to splatter all over the floor instead.

“Are you okay?” Rex asked in concern.

Prue pursed her lips, wondering if they suspected anything as she looked up and caught his eyes. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m okay…” she stammered to him.

“You sure? I’m sorry I can’t believe that happened.”

Prue just shook her head. “It’s okay.”

He still didn’t look too convinced. “Well, uh, I really don’t know what to say, except you’re hired, if you still want the job.”

Prue’s face lit up. “Are you serious?”

Rex smiled. “Can you start tomorrow?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“Terrific. It’s done then. We can sort out the details when you come in. In the meantime, welcome aboard.”

Prue just grinned, hoisting her bag back onto her shoulder. “Thanks,” she said before walking back for the front of the office. “Bye.”

As she walked away, Hannah approached Rex from where she was still standing next to the ladder.

Rex looked pleased as Prue walked away. “Well, what do you think?” he prompted her.

Hannah looked after Prue for a moment, not seeming to be impressed. “I think she’s either the luckiest woman alive, or she’s a witch.”

 

(-:-)

 

Dean was still moving cautiously after half the day had passed, but he was feeling a bit more confident than he had after the toolbox had dropped earlier. He had gotten through a car back firing twice, and had even caught a grease rag Jayme threw at him without losing his control over his powers. It was an improvement, and right now, that was all he was looking for.

He had even relaxed about it to the point he had gotten lost in the engine in front of him. Something was making a racket when the car turned on and he was determined to find it. Dean didn’t even hear it when Eric had asked if anyone wanted him to grab them lunch while he ran to the nearest taco joint.

So with everything going perfect, he, of course, should have known that something would go terribly wrong before the day was over.

His head was still buried in the guts of the car when there was a crash just feet away from the vehicle he was on. Reacting instead of calming himself, he jumped to attention and away from his car. Luckily, his hands stayed clenched around the tools in his hands, and no explosions went off as he surveyed the situation.

The same guy who had dropped the tool box earlier that morning had just driven a car into one of the lifts, which of course was loaded and had a Subaru now rocking precariously on the top. The guy driving started yelling at the machine like _it_ was at fault while the other guys in the shop just started yelling that he was an idiot.

Dean yelled something along the same lines as he ran forward and took appraisal of the lift. Nothing seemed to be broken yet, but one of the supports had been dented, leaving the platform at the top unbalanced and slowly allowing the car to slide off. He didn’t know if it could be fixed, but for three seconds, he crouched down, looking carefully at the lift to see if there was anything he could do before the car fell.

Apparently, the answer to that question was _no_ , because before he could answer it himself, he heard Jayme screaming at him, and then felt the man tackle him from the slide.

There was the sound of more metal crunching while he and Jayme slid across the smooth concrete, out of the way of the car as it toppled off of the lift. He felt more than saw Jayme rolling to cover his head while he instead shot up stalk straight to see what was happening. His arms flew out to help him get balance back just as the Subaru from the lift hit the engine of the car that had been driven into it.

Power surged through his arms as he raised his arms to cover his face, and then there were two bangs. One from the cars hitting each other, and one from Dean’s magic flying out and hitting the falling car.

Heat blasted across the shop when the gas tank of one of the cars lit up like a roman candle. The lift crumbled. The other guys started screaming.

Almost shockingly, Dean didn’t feel the heat on his arms that were scraped and a little raw from the blast. He smelled the smoke coming from the rest of the shops as other chemicals were already catching fire. All he really focused on was the fact that he had done this.

Again.

_Son of a bitch._

Immediately he started scrambling to get the other guys out, specifically Jayme. Everyone else was running for the exits he could see, dodging the smoke while Dean looked for his friend. He wasn’t too far away, curled up on himself a few feet from Dean with a car door laying across his torso. He seemed unconscious, which Dean wasn’t entirely sure could be defined as good or bad.

“Jayme!” He shouted, starting to tug at the metal on top of him. “Jayme, talk to me!”

The other man just laid there, and Dean started to swear again. He dragged the door off of him, and by the time he managed to lug Jayme onto his shoulders, the smoke was almost too thick to see through.

He could hardly see the light from the garage doors as he started crawling out. He heard more and more shouting, and there were sirens when he stumbled out into the sunlight. Immediately the other workers were swarming around him, pulling Jayme onto their own shoulders and trying to help Dean as he staggered far enough away that he could collapse.

He looked back at the building breathlessly, watching smoke pouring from the building and flames roar up as they reached other cars and other gas tanks. His fault, all of it.

His head fell into his hands, and he felt something wet. A drop of red started running down his hand. Apparently he was wounded. That was just perfect too.

Just when things were getting better.

 

(-:-)

 

Sam’s first few classes hadn’t been too bad. He’d gotten through math and biology without the headache hurting too much, but sitting in history was awful. His head was now pounding, the back of his head felt swollen and heavy.

The teacher was droning on about something or another, but Sam had given up on taking notes five minutes ago. He could see the students around him lolling their heads, trying not to fall asleep. The two kids in front of him though were passing a note.

Every now and then their hands would pass the paper between them, and now the receiver was giggling before looking behind her, towards the back of the room. Sam didn’t look to see what they were looking at, knowing that that was where Anya sat. The gossip mill was still running, he saw, and he guessed that Jennae’s death was making people a little bolder at making fun of her friends now.

He could practically _feel_ the radiance of Anya’s bitch face, though, after the note-passer giggled at her, and it only seemed to make Sam’s headache worse.

Sam put his face in his hands, trying to will the headache to go away. Not that it would work; he had tried before.

And then something hit him in the back of the head, and the pain spiked.

For the second time while he was awake, a premonition shot through his head. He saw Anya and himself at the manor. Anya was on the floor with blood soaking through her shirt, her mouth open wide in a scream. Sam was trying to stop the blood, but it obviously wasn’t working.

In a split second, the image was gone. His headache had stopped, and the teacher was yelling at someone.

“Anya, I will not have anyone throwing things in my class!”

Sam opened his eyes, and looked around.

People were staring at him.

Oh god, had he yelped when the premonition hit?

He blinked, and looked around. There was a dense ball of paper on the desk behind him, directly between him and Anya. She looked absolutely unrepentant, even though she had missed her targets, the note passers. Actually, she was sneering at Sam like he was a big baby for getting her caught.

Sam picked up the paper and looked back ahead, processing what had just happened with wide eyes. Jenae had died a gruesome death, and Anya was going to be next.

 

(-:-)

 

Quake was bustling around as Piper walked back over to the bar to take her break. Phoebe was sitting there with Sam, looking over his shoulder as he worked on something for school.

She had thought it was odd when he had come here after school, seeing as it wasn’t normal for him to hang out there. He usually just went home, or he went to Brady’s house after school. Today, though, he had shown up an hour and a half after class had ended, and he kept glancing around like he was watching someone. His eyes kept flitting to a booth where two girls were sitting, groaning about something or another, but Piper didn’t ask.

“I’m telling you, you need to fix that sentence,” Phoebe grumbled, pointing at a line on his notebook. Sam just rolled his eyes.

“Will you stop? I know how to write a rough draft.”

“It’s a bad sentence,” Phoebe chimed.

“Hey, I’m the one in high school. I think I know what I’m doing.”

“Come on, Sam, let me help,” Phoebe whined. “English was always my best subject.

“When you were actually at school,” Piper joked as she walked around the bar. “Sam, why are you doing that here anyway? It’d be a lot easier to work on at home.”

Sam made a face. “I know, it’s just…” he began, before trailing off, frowning. He seemed to be coming up with the words right as Prue walked up to the bar with Dean in tow.

Everyone looked at him in concern as he sat down, looking irritated and upset. There were bandages covering both of his forearms, and there was a cut on his forehead that had butterfly sutures keeping it closed.

“Dean-are you-“

“Don’t finish that sentence,” he cut Piper off, his tone dangerous. There was a beat of aggravated silence as he put his elbows on the bar and dropped his head into his hands. “No, I am not okay.”

Sam closed his notebook sharply, looking his brother over. “What happened?”

Prue’s wince told him that he shouldn’t have asked. An hour or two after her interview, Dean had called her from the hospital and said he had blown up the auto-shop. He was mostly okay,with just a few cuts and scrapes, but Jayme had a concussion, and the fire department was still at the shop from what his boss had told him. Anyone who knew him could tell that Dean was furious with himself, feeling like it was entirely his fault.

“I happened. Guess what I managed to blow up today? The shop. As in the entire building. With people and eighteen cars inside.”

“Oh no,” Piper gasped. “What…is-is everyone okay?”

“Everyone is alive.” The statement didn’t seem to bring any consolation to Dean, though. “Jayme’s got a concussion, and a few guys had to be checked over for smoke inhalation, but aside from that they’re good. But damn it the shop…”

Phoebe cut him off. “Dean, it’s not your fault.”

“The hell it’s not-“

“No, she’s right,” Prue said, interrupting. “Jayme said that a lift was damaged and nearly dropped a car on you. You can’t blame yourself for reacting to that.”

Dean still swore. “It’s not an excuse!” he said, adamant that it shouldn’t have happened. He had been in high stress before, but this was the first time he had accidentally lit a building on fire. “There are twelve guys out of work now because of me…”

Sam swallowed hard, and tried to tune out the argument. This was the kind of thing he was still hiding his powers because of. Piper looked skittish just because of Dean’s part of the story, and Phoebe was being entirely discounted because her power wasn’t dangerous. If Dean emoted like normal people, he would have been curling up in the Impala and crying his eyes out because of all the stress he was dealing with. They didn’t need another reason to be freaking out.

They didn’t need to know about his powers just yet.

Thinking about his powers, though, he glimpsed back across the restaurant where Amber and Anya were sitting at a table. They were far younger than the normal clientele, but they came from wealthy families. They had made plans to come here for dinner, and Sam had decided to keep an eye on Anya. Something bad was going to happen, and even if he couldn’t help, he could at least be there.

At the moment, though, Anya seemed to be fine. She was chatting and sipping on her soda like any other teenage girl. Aside from the sad look on her face, you might not even have suspected one of her best friends had died.

Amber, on the other hand, had been getting twitchy since she walked into the restaurant, and she kept pulling out a hand mirror. For a few minutes, she would poke at her face, as if she had a smudge or something on it. She still hadn’t put it away from the last time she had gotten it out, and Anya was looking concerned.

He looked back to the conversation with the girls and Dean. Dean still looked miserable. Piper still looked skittish. Phoebe and Prue were still trying to convince Dean it wasn’t his fault.

“…Mr. Logan spent years trying to buy that place guys…”

“And he has insurance. It’ll be fine-“

“But it’s not!”

“Dean, there’s a learning curve,” Phoebe said in his defense. “You can’t blame yourself for every little-“

And then there was a scream.

Everyone turned rapidly towards the table where Amber and Anya were sitting. Anya looked terrified and disgusted. Amber looked…

Amber looked awful.

In the thirty seconds since Sam had looked away, she had started picking at her face frantically, like she couldn’t stop. Skin had started to peel off in layers. Chunks of flesh were missing from her cheeks and forehead. Blood was oozing from what was supposed to be her face, and already her wrists were starting to drip from how hard she was scratching.

She was muttering to herself about how her skin was so ugly.

“Amber-Amber what are you doing?” Anya squeaked, tripping over herself to get out of her chair, and to move to Amber’s side to grab her hands and make her stop. Amber just smacked her away, and stood up herself to go to the bathroom for a better mirror.

Wait staff were gaping at the girl that was breaking all kinds of health codes, looking in disgust at the flesh she had left behind at her table, and the blood stains that followed. Piper stood up desperately to stop her.

She stammered as she got in front of her, grabbing her wrists despite the blood. “Excuse me-honey, you can’t-“

Amber smacked Piper away viciously before she put a hand to her neck, and got wide-eyed as she felt at it. Sam gaped, and he looked at Dean, who seemed to be thinking the same thing.

They both jumped out of their seats just as Amber started scratching again, and blood started pouring down her neck.

“God-I can’t believe no one told me how awful I look…” she was muttering to herself hysterically. Her fingers dug into her skin as if she didn’t even feel it, just as Dean got close enough, he grabbed her wrists.

“Hey!” she yelled, frantically trying to get her hands back, but Dean could feel there wasn’t much fight in her. Blood was draining from her at an impossible rate, soaking her clothes and starting to spatter Dean’s.

“Someone call an ambulance!” Piper shouted as a literal stream of blood, thick and dark started to pour from her neck.

Amber kept struggling, but slowly, she started to fall to the ground as she bled out.

The entire restaurant could only stare in horror.

Anya was crying in her chair by the time the ambulance got there, and all of the Halliwells felt sick.

 

(-:-)

 

None of the Halliwells were in a great move when they got back to the manor.

The four of them had gotten out of the restaurant the second that the police got their names. Piper had to stay behind and monitor the police while they took care of the body and the clean up. No one was even sure if it was a police matter, but it was certainly bizarre, and this soon after her best friend had died, the cops wanted to be sure.

“What the hell was that?” Phoebe asked, her voice shaking.

“Witches,” Dean replied, acid on his tongue. He was pacing behind them, and waving his blood-covered hands. He was pretty messy from holding Amber, but he couldn’t even think of changing right now. “That is the only thing I have ever known that could…that _would_ do that. And in the middle of a restaurant? Whoever this bitch is, she’s sloppy as all hell and that’s makes this shit even worse…”

“Witches?” Prue repeated, her eyes going wide. “Like…our kind of witches or-“

Sam cut her off, knowing that what Dean said was true. “No, not witches like us,” he said, keeping his head in his hands. “Witches like...like the ones we hunt.”

Phoebe put her hands on her hips and faced Dean. “Alright, well how are they different?”

Dean kept pacing, holding his hands in front of him to try not to wave them and accidentally blow something up. “Alright, for one, they usually aren’t _born_ with their powers,” he said. “They promise their souls to demons in exchange for power. The bad ones do, at least, and they usually only end up using it for selfish reasons. As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, it isn’t our problem. Girls’ ripping their faces off in the middle of a restaurant obviously is.”

“Aside from the demons, they use spells, a lot like the ones in the book,” Sam followed up. “Anything major requires a blood sacrifice on an altar. God it’s probably just a stupid kid…”

“Which only makes it worse, because we do not need to be killing teenagers in our town,” Dean grumbled, still pacing.

This made both Phoebe and Prue look at them in extreme alarm. The entire room seemed to go silent until Phoebe managed to choke out a response. “What?”

Sam kept his head down; Dean looked back at them, obviously unsettled by the concept, but less so than they were. They had not gotten around to telling the girls about all of the hunting trips they had been on with their father, so the idea of killing monsters, no matter what they looked like, hadn’t come up just yet.

Dean swallowed, not sure how to broach this with them. “A lot of the time, witches end up being teenagers,” he said slowly. “They just found a book of magic and decided to try it. They get in too deep, and hunters have to pull them out. Sometimes they take the hint after the first warning. But when it’s this bad: when they’ve killed people…” he trailed off, looking at the ground. “Sometimes a warning isn’t enough.”

“But-but this witch could be Sammy’s age,” Prue said, her voice squeaking. “We don’t even know who it would be, or if she even meant for this to happen.”

Sam blanched. “Suspect pool is pretty wide,” he grumbled. “Amber terrorizes…terrorized half the kids at school. She was even picking on me and Brady this morning.”

Phoebe looked even more aghast. “So this…this other witch could just be protecting herself from bullies?” she said. “Dean-we…I don’t know if killing-“

“Pheebs, she’s already killed someone,” said Dean darkly, dragging a hand down his face in misery. “She’s no better than Jeremy, or Javna.”

“No,” Phoebe blurted. “Jeremy and Javna were-were murderers! They killed people for power. This kid is trying to protect herself; we don’t even know if she’ll do it again…”

Sam fought the urge to groan before calling back out. “She’s done it before and she’ll do it again,” he blurted from his seat.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at him. Prue slid into a chair on the other side of the table from him. “Why do you say that?”

He hesitantly looked up. “Last night one of Amber’s friends was found mutilated in a parking garage,” he said. “People at school were talking about it all morning. Someone said that her bones were sticking out of her skin when they found her.”

Prue looked down at the table, closing her eyes as if she had just heard the worst news of her life.

Phoebe visibly started to choke up. “But…but that doesn’t mean.”

“Trust me Phoebe, there’s going to be another,” Sam sighed, his head falling onto the table. “I don’t know if there will be another afterwards, but the girl Amber was having dinner with is next.”

A heavy silence fell over all of them, but a few moments later, Dean looked over at him with a look of confusion on his face. “Why are you so sure?”

Sam shook his head, trying to fight the tightness in his throat at the comment. “I just know, okay?”

But Prue looked suspicious too. “Sam, you need to tell us okay,” she said. “This is serious.”

Dean walked behind her so that the both of them could look directly at him, and between the two, Sam didn’t know what to do. He wanted to lie to them, to tell them that it was just a guess, but that would mean they might not believe him about Anya. The truth was going to make them _so_ pissed with him.

He nervously licked his lips. “Er…I might have…” he fumbled with the words, trying to find the easiest way to put it. “I might have had a premonition.”

When he looked back at them, Dean was blinking rapidly, trying to respond. Prue’s eyes were wide, and her mouth was open with shock. He couldn’t see what Phoebe was doing, but he assumed that she was staring at her just as aghast as they were.

“You…had a premonition?” Prue eventually breathed. “Wha-when? _Since_ when?”

Sam looked back at the table, swallowing guiltily. “Well, the premonition about Anya was in History today,” he started. “She hit me in the head with a paper ball, and just…bam, I see her on the floor being gutted like a trout.” He laughed nervously. “But I might have had another one maybe…maybe two weeks ago.”

“ _What_?”

And _that_ was the sound of Dean getting pissed at him.

“You’ve had powers as long as we have?” he growled.

“You didn’t tell us?” added Prue. “Sam! I can’t believe you!”

“It’s not exactly like your powers okay!” Sam said in his defense. “It’s been…weird.”

“All the more reason you should have let us know,” Prue chastised. “Sammy you can’t keep that kind of a secret.”

“I didn’t want to worry you, alright?” he groaned. “Things have been chaotic enough with your powers, you didn’t need to know that mine came with complimentary migraines and freaky-ass dreams-“

“Wait, and this is with the power of premonition?” Phoebe asked, sounding confused. Premonition was, of course, Phoebe’s power, and she hardly even felt anything when she had her premonitions. “That hasn’t happened to me…”

“I told you,” Sam replied. “It’s been weird. But that’s not what-“

“No,” Dean interrupted, going back to holding his arms pensively in front of him so he didn’t start flinging them around in anger. “No, you can’t say that’s not what we’re talking about right now, because we damn well should have talked about this when it started! Sam what do you even think would have come from not telling us? Huh? We’ve been worried sick about how you’re handling everything or if something was wrong because you were the only one without powers. Would have been nice to know…”

“Dean,” Sam tried to interrupt.

But Dean just whirled back around on him, and didn’t even seem to notice when his hands unclasped. His mouth opened to say something about how he wasn’t done talking, but when he put his hands up, there was a rush of magic and a bang.

Sam and Phoebe, who were standing on the same side of the table, ducked. Prue whirled around at Dean as if trying to warn him, but by that time, he was just staring at the spot on the wall. Right behind where Sam’s head had been, a sconce had been blown to bits.

They all looked at him pensively as he stared at it. He didn’t say a word, eventually looking down at Sam, torn between miserably guilty and still angry that he had lied. After a few moments he just stormed out of the dining room.

Prue looked at Sam almost accusingly. “We’re going to have a long talk tomorrow,” she growled. “Go upstairs. You have school in the morning and apparently we have to track down a witch…”

At that, she got up and rushed after Dean.

Sam eventually staggered out of his chair, looking after the both of them. Phoebe comfortingly moved to his side. “I…I didn’t mean for this…” he muttered.

Phoebe pursed her lips a little, and comfortingly put an arm around his shoulders before starting to walk to the stairs. “ _I_ believe you…”

 

(-:-)

 

Chasing Dean led Prue out into the driveway, where she promptly found him with his forehead resting on the hood of his car. He probably would have kicked up some dirt when he got out here, pounded his hands on the trunk to try and get out some frustration with what had just happened. Right now, though, passively standing there against his metallic safety blanket was all he could do.

To the girls, the Impala was just a car. It was their Uncle John’s car, of course, and now Dean’s car, but to Dean it was as much _home_ as the manor was. To him, the Impala was playing around with Sam while they drove out to Bobby’s for the summer. It was his dad ruffling his hair when he and Sam took a pocket knife to the rear dashboard. It was where he stashed the guns and holy water that he intended to keep his family safe with, and where John and Grams had fussed at each other when he learned to drive. It was where he had been sitting when they dropped Piper off at Senior Prom, and where Phoebe had lost her front teeth when John took them to the zoo after Mary died. It was also the only stable thing in his life he had for the year and a half he spent hunting with his dad.

The manor might have been home, but the Impala had all of Dean’s favorite memories of his family. And right now, with the world kicking his ass every which way, he needed the comfort that brought him.

Prue quietly approached the vehicle, and leant up against it, just waiting until Dean finally looked up to acknowledge her presence. It took a while with them both sitting there in the near darkness of night, but he eventually spoke to her.

“Why would he lie to us?”

Prue shrugged, even though he wasn’t looking. “He might not have known what else to do,” she said. “His powers are confusing him, and all of us were freaking out so much that he didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“Until he realized that he had to tell us eventually,” Dean grumbled. “Yeah. Great.”

He was still obviously upset at a myriad of things. His little brother keeping secrets was just the outlet, but he was still upset about destroying the shop earlier, and the idea of having to take out the teenager that was just protecting herself from bullies, and from nearly blowing off Sam’s head.

They wouldn’t be able to talk about Sam or Dean’s powers until the dust settled, so she went with the least dangerous topic. “Whatever is going on with Sam, we still have a witch to deal with,” Prue said. “I don’t like the idea of killing a girl Sam goes to school with any more than Phoebe does, but we need to find her. With any luck, maybe she just doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

“I doubt it,” Dean grumbled. “Once is an accident. Twice is a suspicious coincidence. Three times is a pattern with intent. We aren’t going to be able to talk her out of it.”

“But we can try,” Prue said. “Hunting monsters is your gig. What do we do?”

Dean finally looked back up, and rubbed his eyes as the gears turned in his head. “Well, I’ll make some calls, see if Phoebe can get a position at Sam’s school as a substitute teacher tomorrow. She can look at the students with Sam to see if they can tell who the witch is. I’ll get into school records to see if there are any incidents worth reporting.”

“And when we have a suspect?”

Dean looked at her, and shrugged a little. “We try to get her to stop, and do whatever it takes to make sure she doesn’t kill again.”

 

(-:-)

 

Thursday morning came bright and early for all of them for once. Prue left for her new job at the same time everyone else left to go to Sam’s school.

Dean had stayed up for several hours the night before making phone calls and getting jobs set up the next morning. He informed Piper of the situation (and what happened to the sconce in her dining room) when she got home, and she had been enlisted to help him get into the school records the next day.

Phoebe’s picture had been snuck into a file that said she was a substitute teacher for Sam’s English class, so that she and Sam could each check out the different students at school and try to figure out who it might be.

And this was how it came to pass that the four of them were sitting in the Impala the next morning and slowly pulling through the morning traffic.

“Guys, I don’t know how to teach.”

Phoebe, despite the fact that she was normally fearless, was a little jumpy about this. She might have been a wild child, but she wasn’t outright deceitful. Today she was going to have to lie to everyone about who she was, and she would have to try and convince people that she was a teacher. Dean had said it wasn’t that hard, but she was still distressed. In the back of her mind, she was still a little worried about how she might have to help kill one of the students she was teaching today.

“English was your best subject, remember,” Sam tried to joke where he was sitting next to her, but no one laughed.

In the front seat, Piper and Dean were mostly quiet. Piper, despite having agreed to help wasn’t incredibly enthusiastic about getting school records like Dean wanted. Dean was just in general still sulking from everything that had happened the day before, and was a little tired from having stayed up all night arranging things.

“Just do whatever the lesson plan the teacher left,” Dean grumbled in response to Phoebe. “She probably just wants you to play a movie or something. All you need to do is press play and listen to them gossip about who hated the wicked witches the most.”

The Impala inched another car-space forward. “But what if she didn’t?” Phoebe protested. “What if we’re having a class discussion? I didn’t read any of the books…”

“It’s gonna be nothing like that,” Sam assured her as the car finally inched far enough into the parking lot that Dean could pull into the student parking spaces. He took one of the empty spots near the back of the lot and parked.

“It’ll be fine, Pheebs,” assured Dean in a dull tone. Sam and Phoebe climbed out of the back seat.

Piper waved. “Have fun hunting witches,” she called. Phoebe turned and made a face at them while Sam just shook his head and kept walking.

For a few more moments, Dean and Piper just watched them walk. But Piper had to ask.

“How did you manage to fake her teaching certificate?”

Dean grinned a little. “Just called in a favor,” he said, keeping the smile on his face.

Being that it was the first smile in two days, Piper didn’t question it.

 

(-:-)

 

Sam and Phoebe split on different paths the second they made it into the building. Phoebe needed to go to the classroom she would be in for the day, and Sam was still planning to meet up with Brady like he always did. Everyone there that morning was chattering even louder than normal as he made his way to his locker. He wasn’t surprised when he found Brady waiting for him.

Almost as soon as he got there, Brady opened his mouth, but Sam put up a hand to silence it. “Lemme guess, Amber got her face nommed off by a crazy supermodel last night and the entire school is talking about it.”

Brady looked flabbergasted. “Dude! How did you know?” he exclaimed, only for Sam to roll his eyes.

“Because unlike you, I was actually there, and trust me, it’s nothing gossip worthy. Amber clawed at her skin until she bled to death and it was disgusting. Seriously, it’s not something that anyone should be talking about.”

“Buzz kill,” Brady scoffed, leaning up against the locker behind him while Sam turned the lock on his own. Before Brady could open his mouth further to explain, there was a burst of laughter at the other end of the hallway, and the two of them looked to see Anya scrambling to get away from a group of girls. Her face was bright red and frustrated, tears were threatening to spill down her cheeks. She didn’t look nearly as polished as she usually did, wearing a dull gray sweater on top of grimy jeans, and absolutely no makeup.

“You’re such a jerk for talking about my friends that way!” one of the girls picking on her teased in a nasally voice.

“Not so tough now that Jenae and Amber are gone are you?” another yelled after her.

Sam could have sworn he heard Anya muffle a sob as she rushed by them.

He looked down the hall, a little shocked that this was how high school kids reacted to the death of another student. He got that Amber, Jenae and Anya weren’t nice people, but this girl had just lost both of her best friends, and they were making it into a joke.

Jeez people sucked.

 

(-:-)

 

Prue didn’t actually wait for the receptionist to wave her in as she walked into Buckland’s for the third time. There were a few people milling about, and she assumed that she just needed to find Rex or Hannah to point her to her new office.

Looking around the office spaces for the first time, Prue realized that this was probably the only part of the auction house that wasn’t under construction. It was two hallways that met in a T, with doors lining each end. A few of them had windows that peered inside, a few were open. The one at the end of the hall that read _Rex Buckland_ was neither. She walked up, considering knocking when there was a voice behind her.

“Hey, you the new girl?”

Prue looked around slowly, only to see two men peeking out of their offices in the stem of the T. One of them was only a bit taller than she was in her four-inch heels, and had long-ish gold-brown hair. The other was certainly at least six foot, with dark brown hair gelled back neatly.

She hadn’t seen either of them in the office when she had come in for her interview. She had assumed that everyone was new.

“Excuse me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The one that had spoken before, the shorter one, walked entirely out of his office. “The new specialist,” he elaborated. “Heard we were replacing the dick that used to fill that position.” He shot a look at the other man. “Pun intended.”

The other man rolled his eyes. “Grow up will you?” he chastised before looking back to Prue. “Hi, so _are_ you the new specialist?”

Hesitantly, Prue nodded. “Yes, actually,” she said, holding out her hand professionally. “I’m Prue Halliwell.”

The man smiled, and firmly shook her hand. “Alan Stanton,” he replied. “Accounting Manager.”

Prue smiled, and nodded as if she were impressed before she then turned to the shorter man, who smiled fiendishly. “Lawrence Hiddleston,” he said brightly. “Art appraiser. Call me Laurie.”

With a little laugh, Prue replied, “It’s nice to meet you two. Really, I can’t say I got this warm of a greeting at my last job.”

“Yeah, I’d expect that working at the museum you get a lot of sticks in the mud,” Laurie replied, only for Alan to roll his eyes.

“That could also be said about a guy who fawns over Medieval Madonnas.”

“Oh come on, those things are hilarious! Alien-headed Mary? What’s not to love?”

The entire exchange brought an amused look back to Prue’s face, and before she could get too engrossed, there was a tap on her shoulder, and they all turned to see Rex standing next to her. He seemed to be similarly amused.

“I see you met the stooges,” he joked as he walked over.

Laurie made a face at the boss. “A wise guy, eh?” he muttered, doing a pretty good Curly impression.

Alan rolled his eyes again. “Hey, Rex,” he said. “Just chatting with our new coworker.

“I can see that,” Rex said. “But I’ll have to interrupt you, as we have business to discuss.”

“Right,” Prue said. She looked back at Laurie and Allen, saying “It was nice meeting you,” as Rex led her to his office.

As the door closed, Alan and Laurie just stood there for a moment. “She seems nice,” Alan commented.

“We don’t pay people to be nice,” said a sharp voice from behind them.

They both turned around, and seemed mildly chagrinned to see Hannah standing behind them. “We pay people to get their work done, like you two should be doing now.”

Laurie smirked, despite the sour face she was making. “I don’t know,” he said. “There’s something to be said when your coworkers actually smile a bit.”

Hannah narrowed her eyes and sneered at him a little. “Get back to work,” she growled, before walking away to her own office.

Laurie chuckled a bit as he walked back to his office. “Whatever you say, Hell-Bitch.”

Still in the middle of their conversation, Alan looked between the two doors that had just closed, and reflected on how strange his co-workers were.

 

(-:-)

 

It turned out that Dean was wrong about being able to watch a movie in Ms. Darkholm’s English class. Instead, when Phoebe got there, she had to give out worksheets, which she thought would be just as easy. The first few classes of the day proved that it was not.

Apparently, _worksheets_ in student-language meant _talk at the loudest volume you can manage while ignoring the paper entirely_. She had nearly needed to yell to calm down her first period class, and it hadn’t gotten any better as the day went on.

She was quite enthused to see Sam walk in for third period, but he actually looked upset about being there. It wasn’t until Anya walked in, students jeering behind her, that Phoebe understood why.

Phoebe had been hearing the gossip all morning, and while she hadn’t gotten any useful information about a witch, she _had_ remembered how teenagers could be real jerks.

When the bell rang, she walked up to the front of the room and smiled after writing the name Dean had told her to use while working today.

“Good morning everyone, I’m Miss Waters and I’m subbing for Ms. Darkholm today.”

None of the students seemed particularly keen on being as friendly as she was being.

She coughed, and picked up a stack of worksheets from Ms. Darkholm’s desk. “I have a worksheet for you to do on Great Expectations. Please work quietly and turn it into me when you’re done.”

She hadn’t even managed to pass it out to the first row when the kids at the back of the room started to talk as loudly as they possibly could. Someone was bitching about another class, and a few girls were giggling over a boy band, but without fail, Jenae and Amber’s names came up.

“So dude, what I told you earlier wasn’t true.”

“I knew that. No way you did it in the bathroom with Carla-“

“Alright, that _so_ happened, but I was talking about what happened to Amber. A supermodel didn’t actually eat her face.”

Phoebe looked up, and actually rolled her eyes at how idiotic some people could be. She glanced over at the boys that were talking. Both of them looked like stoners, with half grown, scraggly beards. One had a number of piercings lining his ears.

Two seats in front of them, Anya looked like she was trying not to cry, and was trying to hide her face in her pink purse.

“Aww man,” the one without piercings replied to his friend. “That’s lame.”

“No-no the truth is stranger than fiction!” insisted piercings. “She did it herself! She literally scratched off her face in the middle of a restaurant.”

“No way!”

“Yeah! Sick, right?!”

Anya turned around, but instead of the bitchy tone she had used when talking to Sam and his friends the day before, she actually sounded legitimately upset. “Guys, can you please stop talking about it?” she pleaded. “It isn’t funny.”

Piercings looked back at her and laughed a little. “Oh, and what are you gonna do if we keep talking?” he taunted. “Cry at us?”

Anya looked like she just might do that. Everyone turned to the center of the room to listen.

“Just-just stop, alright!” Anya insisted.

Piercings made a few blubbering noises. “St-st-stop!” he mocked. The rest of the class laughed, except Sam and the girl next to him, who just looked over at the boy in annoyance.

Phoebe stood up and called him out. “Hey,” she insisted. “She’s right, that’s enough. This is a very real, very intense situation. You shouldn’t be joking when two of your classmates died.”

“Well then what should we do? Walk through the halls weeping in anguish?” Piercings scoffed. “Those bitches had it coming!”

Sam looked like he was about to say otherwise, but Anya cut him off.

“Hey!” she shouted, rounding on the boys and flinging her purse off the desk. “Don’t talk about them that way! They didn’t deserve to die!”

“The fuck they didn’t. You and they both made half the kids in school miserable. Last fall you stole everyone’s clothes from the locker room during gym and dumped it all over the school. Just last week you completely destroyed Anton’s science project and you trashed Dana’s car in the parking lot. As far as I’m concerned, they deserved the bloody deaths they got, and I hope the same damn thing happens to you.”

Anya’s already tear-filled eyes started to over flow, and she ran from the room. Sam gritted his teeth and ran out of the room after her while Phoebe just looked at the class in shock.

“Being a dick makes you just as bad as they are,” Sam’s friend, Tina, chastised from her desk.

Piercings just laughed. “Come on Tina, you know you wanted them gone just as bad as the rest of us.”

“That doesn’t mean you should make fun of her.”

“Hey, just because you can’t stand up for yourself doesn’t-“

“That’s enough!” Phoebe cut him off again. “What’s your name and what the hell do you have against these girls?”

The boy looked at her as if he hadn’t even known she was in the room in the first place. “Jeez, calm down-“

“No, I won’t,” Phoebe insisted. “You’re mocking the violent deaths of two girls that were your age. I don’t care what they did to you, that doesn’t mean you celebrate because of it. You’re coming with me to the office, right now.”

He slid out of his seat as if this was just a minor annoyance. “But teach-“

“Now!”

 

(-:-)

 

Anya didn’t even make it out of the hall before she collapsed and started bawling, her face pressed into a locker. Following her, Sam felt a bit like he was intruding, but he knew he had to talk to her. He scratched the back of his neck as he walked up awkwardly.

“Hey…ah…you ok-“

“Do you-you really have to come and make f-fun of me right no-ow-oow?” Anya sobbed.

A sort of annoyed sigh came out of Sam’s throat. “I’m not here to make fun of you. I wanted to ask if you were alright.”

“Yeah right…”

“No, really,” he insisted. “I was at the restaurant last night. It was pretty awful. No one should be joking about it.”

Anya, still sobbing, slowly turned around. She sniffed as she looked at him. “Oh…well…thanks…” she muttered.

Sam pursed his lips, and didn’t say anything as she fell back against the lockers, covering her mouth.

“I…it’s Sam right?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry about everything that’s happening. It’s all kind of crazy.”

A choking noise came out of Anya’s throat. “Crazy’s one way to say it,” she gasped. “I still don’t know what the hell happened last night. Amber just…she just started scratching. I…I tried to get her to stop and…and what happened to Jenae…” She choked again. “What could do that? And now stupid Michael wants me to be next?”

Sam winced a little, and looked at the ground. It was cruel what he was about to say, but if he did, maybe he could help keep her safe.

“Er…Anya…”

She seemed to get where this was going, and frowned. “Wha…what is it?”

“The thing is, I think I know what did happen, as crazy as it might sound,” he sighed. “And…you really might be next.”

Her eyes widened with panic. “Wha-why…why would you say that?!” she demanded, starting to cry again, but Sam surged forwards, and put his hands on her arms.

“Hey!” he said, quieting her down. “I’m not trying to be mean, okay. I want to help! Look, me and my brother…” he paused, remembering that he and Dean weren’t alone in it anymore, and nearly sighed, “…and my cousins might be able to stop the person that killed Jenae and Amber, and we think they’re going after you too.”

Anya’s face pinched up, fighting the tears that were about to start pouring down her face again. “And…and why are you telling me?”

“Because you might be able to help us figure out who it is.”

Amber seemed to pause, but nodded, and wiped her eyes. She pursed her lips a little, and took in a sharp breath.

Now that she was calm, Sam took a step back. “We can talk about it later, okay,” he said, motioning for her to go back to class. The two of them walked together, and found that Phoebe had left the classroom. Everyone was talking so loudly that only Tina noticed that they had walked back in.

Anya let out a little wail, though. Someone had stolen her purse while she was gone.

 

(-:-)

 

“So I think I have our witch.”

Prue blinked a little in shock as she dug through her new desk, and held the phone closer to her ear. “Really, that quick?” she asked.

“Well, it isn’t a sure thing,” Phoebe elaborated over the phone line. Back at the school, she was on her lunch break. “But based on the things that jerk said in class, I’m pretty sure.”

Prue fumbled with the materials on her desk, trying to get it set up the way she wanted now that she had the job. Her new office certainly wasn’t like the one she had at the museum with its dozens of bookshelves and binders on museum materials. Instead it was sparse, and painted white. There was a desk with a computer, and a small bookshelf near the door, but aside from that it was empty, ready for whatever she deemed she needed. There was a window letting in the sunlight. She had easily decided that she liked this office more.

“What’d he do?”

“He pretty much just declared that he Amber and Jenae deserved to be killed violently and that Anya deserved the same thing.”

“That doesn’t make it an admission of guilt, Phoebe…” Prue tried before there was a beep on her phone that said she had another call. “I need to put you on hold, give me a sec…” She took the phone away from her ear and punched a few buttons before putting it back up.

“Prue Halliwell speaking.”

“Hey Prue.”

Prue smiled a little. “Hey Andy. What’s up?” she asked cheerfully, hearing her maybe-boyfriend’s voice. Since getting her powers, Prue had been cautiously going out on dates with him. She liked him a lot, as a long term family friend and one of her best ex-boyfriends. At the same time, though, she had to be cautious about who she spent her time with, especially Andy. He was a cop, and if he figured out that she had lately been spending her time as a vigilante-witch-superhero, she doubted it would go over well.

Even so, the latest in their string of dates had been phenomenal. He’d taken her to dinner twice and been a complete gentleman. He reminded her how to have fun, and it made her wonder if things might just work out with him.

“Oh, just dealing with a case,” Andy replied as if it were nothing big, which granted it might not have been. Not every cop got the big cases every day, and Prue knew for a fact that he wasn’t working Jenae and Amber’s case. “How about you?”

“I’m starting my new job,” Prue said, putting an excited little chirp in her voice as she leaned back in her chair and surveyed the room. “They’ve just got me settling into my office right now, so it’s nice…”

“Nothing too busy, then?”

Prue heard the tone in his voice and smiled. “Not really.”

“So then you might have some time to squeeze in dinner tonight?”

Prue’s eyes lit up, but then she nearly swore when she remembered the business about the witch they were after. “Actually, tonight doesn’t work,” she sighed. “I’d love to but we’ve got this thing with a friend of Sam’s…”

“Oh,” Andy sounded disappointed.

“But I might be able to make it tomorrow night,” Prue said, as disappointed as Andy that tonight wouldn’t work. “Would picking me up at Buckland’s Auction House work for you?”

“That would work great,” Andy encouraged. “I’ll see you at five.”

“Great, see you then,” Prue pulled the phone back and switched the call back to Phoebe’s line. “Hi. What was I saying?”

“You were saying that motive does not a murderer make.”

“What?”

“What?”

Prue rolled her eyes. “Did you tell Piper and Dean about this guy?”

Phoebe nodded, even though Prue couldn’t see it. “Yeah. Called Dean, they’re going to see if they can get his records too when they get Amber and Jennae’s.” She paused, presumably to take a bite of whatever Piper had packed her for lunch. “You know if it’s this guy, I don’t even think I’ll be upset if Dean has to gank him or whatever. This kid would totally deserve it.”

Prue’s eyes narrowed a little. “Come on, Phoebe, you don’t mean that.”

“You didn’t see him in class. The jerk was brutal!”

“But he’s still a kid,” Prue returned, her voice stern.

There was a beat of silence before Phoebe sighed.

“You okay?” Prue asked.

“Yeah…it’s just that you’re right…” grumbled the younger sister. “I just…if we have to, I’m not going to be okay with finishing it either way, but…this guy. He just went after Anya like she was the spawn of the devil. That’s not okay.”

“Well, with any luck, it will be him,” Prue said encouragingly.

“How will that be lucky? I thought you said we shouldn’t be okay with killing him.”

“Not killing him,” Prue corrected. “But if it is, then you get to lecture him on morals and not killing other students.”

 

(-:-)

 

It was a little later than Dean would have liked when Piper finally decided she was okay with breaking into the front office. They had been sitting in front of the school for four hours now, so it was certainly about time. They had a specific office targeted from what Sam had told them of the school counselors, and Phoebe had already called to give them a suspect.

Dean walked in through the front doors with Piper sneaking along behind him, obviously a little jumpy, which was all good for her. Her powers worked when she was nervous, after all, so it would be helpful.

They quietly strolled over to the double doors that opened to the office and Piper peered inside. There was one receptionist at a desk, and then there was a door that led back to the other offices.

“You ready?” questioned Dean as Piper looked back over at him and hesitantly nodded.

“Yeah…Yeah I’m good…” she said in a shaky voice. She looked back in the window and made the motion with her hands that usually froze things. She felt the power run through her fingers and everything, but the receptionist just kept flicking through papers like it was nothing.

“She’s not freezing...Dean why is she not-“

“Piper, we’re still in the hallway.”

“What?”

“Your powers only work in the same room, remember. Just…open the door.”

“Oh…right.”

A little embarrassed, Piper opened the door as quietly as she could, and slipped a hand inside so that she could do it again. This time, though, the receptionist easily froze in her seat, and Dean and Piper snuck through. Peeking in through the next door, they saw that the hallway was empty, and that the counselor who’s office they were going to had his door wide open.

The two of them hurried through the door, and as soon as they reached the office, she peeked in and froze its occupants. The counselor himself was sitting with a look of suffering in his office chair while he waved a manila folder around. A student wearing mostly black and several ear piercings seemed to be making jokes in the chair across from him. Piper closed the door behind her while Dean moved over to the filing cabinet.

He started pulling out drawers to see where the names were while Piper looked around nervously.

“Hurry up,” Piper reminded, feeling uneasy when she looked at the kid with piercings. “I don’t know how long they’ll stay frozen.”

“I know, I know…” Dean responded, grabbing at a file folder. “Here’s Amber…” There was a beat as he looked in the next drawer down. “And here’s Jenae…” He flipped through the other files, and tried to look back in the drawer at the top. “What was the kid’s name that Phoebe wanted us to look at?”

“Michael Schmidt.”

Dean’s face pulled into a frown. “His file isn’t here.”

Piper’s eyes bulged, but she didn’t take her eyes off of the frozen counselor as she stammered back. “What?”

“It isn’t here,” Dean repeated, looking up, and looking over at her. But then Piper noticed something, and she quirked her head to the side while she stumbled forwards.

Dean watched her in confusion as she stalked around the boy with piercings and started looking at the counselor. “Piper…”

“I think this is him.”

“What?”

She looked at the file folder the counselor had been waving around. “This…” she said, tugging it out of his hand cautiously. She looked at the name on the side and flipped it around so Dean could read. “This kid is Michael.”

“Great,” Dean said, smiling and taking the folder from her. “That’s all we need then. We should book it before…”

But just as the last word was coming out of his mouth, Michael started to slowly tug out of his frozen state. Piper’s eyes went wide, and she went stock still, despite how Dean started tugging at her arm. He tried to say that they should make a break for it, but then Michael was looking around in confusion.

“What the hell…” he grumbled, shaking off the feeling of sluggishness. The still frozen professor in front of him made him quirk an eyebrow, and when he looked around and saw Piper and Dean, he snapped out of his chair. “Dude! What the heck did you do?!”

“N-no-We didn’t-” Piper started stammering while Dean started pushing her to the door.

“Just sit down and shut up kid,” he said, trying to get out as quickly as possible.

Michael snorted. “Forget that,” he grumbled, shoving past them to get to the door.

“Hey,” Dean grumbled. “Get your ass back in there.”

“Why would I listen to you? I’ve got some unholy hell to unleash on the bitch that put me in here…”

They watched him start to strut off, but Piper and Dean froze.

“That bitch being Anya?” Piper squeaked.

Michael shot back a thumbs up, not even looking back, and Dean didn’t even have to see Piper’s look of terror before he was racing after Michael.

Unluckily for him, Michael caught on quick, and he hardly even heard Dean’s boots on the floor before he was sprinting for the exit. Neither of them looked back when the receptionist screamed at them, leaving Piper to apologize.

Michael took Dean on a chase around the front of the school, dodging around trees, jumping in front of cars. He dodged through an alley and knocked down trash cans like he had seen in movies, but Dean was better than that. Michael might have known how to run from cops and school authorities, but Dean had run after werewolves and Wendigos. The kid was nothing compared to that.

He was gaining ground when they wound up behind a convenience store. There were no cars, thankfully, and so when Michael wound up trapped between the dumpster and Dean, no one was around. Dean stood with his shoulders pushed back, looking intimidating when he started to tell the kid that he had some serious explaining to do.

But Michael wasn’t done yet.

In a last ditch effort, Michael charged, and Dean didn’t see it coming. His head hit him in the gut, throwing him back and his arms up. Power ran through his arms and hit the ground just behind Michael. The blast threw them three meters back. Dean heard Piper’s voice yell his name.

By the time he could actually see her, he had scrambled to his feet. He tried to not focus on the scorch marks and battered asphalt behind him. He tried to focus on how Michael had run; how Michael was their witch.

That was kind of hard, though, when the kid looked like he was about to piss himself on the sidewalk. He hadn’t even picked himself up, and was staring at the explosion point in terror.

“Wha-but-what just-“

Dean cut the babbling off. “You. What were you going to do to Anya?” he demanded.

Michael stared up at him with wide eyes. “What?” he choked. “I was…I was just gonna go to her house and spray paint her dad’s car or something!”

Neither Dean or Piper looked convinced. “What about Jenae and Amber, then?” Piper asked.

“What? I didn’t do anything to them!”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“I don’t know?” Michael sputtered. “I swear I didn’t do anything! Bitches deserved what happened, but I don’t know why the hell you think it was me!”

Dean and Piper shared a look, and as the adrenaline started to wear off, Dean started to feel sick to his stomach. He didn’t look back at the scorch mark behind him, and lightly kicked one of Michael’s shoes. “Get out of here,” he growled before stalking back toward the school.

Piper didn’t spare a look at Michael as he ran off, but looked nervously at the new pothole in the asphalt nearby, and knew that this was only going to make things worse.

 

(-:-)

 

Phoebe was sorting through the things on Miss Darkholm’s desk, getting ready for the end of school. The last bell had rung five minutes ago, and looking back and realized that she hadn’t gotten anything done. It was the end of the day, and the student she had suspected had nothing to do with anything. None of the other students stood out at all. If the patterns from the last few days kept it up, another girl would be dead, and she hadn’t helped anyone.

The thought made her feel melancholy, and she frowned as she stacked the papers for the teacher to go through the next day. She was about to grab her purse and head for the door when there was a shadow in the window, and she peered through to see Tina trying not to be seen.

Raising an eyebrow, Phoebe opened the door and peeked around it, catching Tina where she was hiding. “Tina?” she asked. “What are you doing here? Did you forget something earlier?”

The girl seemed to be a little scared, but she nodded, and hid her face. “Yes,” she admitted, sounding almost embarrassed. “I lost a tube of lipstick. Could you let me look around for a bit?”

Phoebe smiled, and opened the door wider, letting her walk in. “Sure,” she said. “I don’t really have anywhere to be.”

Tina smiled, and walked inside, starting to look through the rows of seats. Phoebe went back to the desk. When she looked over at Tina, she realized something: Tina wasn’t wearing any make up at all, especially not lipstick.

Phoebe’s brows furrowed a little, trying to think of why Tina would lie to her. “Uh, so you’re friends with Sam?” she asked, standing up to take a closer look. Maybe she just wasn’t seeing things right.

“Yeah,” Tina replied, not looking back up as she bent down in the back of the room where she had been sitting earlier, where the book shelves were. “Not close friends, but friendly enough. Why do you ask?”

Phoebe walked up on the other side of the aisle just as Tina popped up smiling, holding up a navy tube of lipstick. “Found it!” she exclaimed. “Thank you Miss Waters.”

“No problem,” Phoebe began to say warily, though Tina had run out of the room too fast for her to hear it. She raised an eyebrow, and looked at the chair.

She had seemed like such a sweet girl earlier, but…

Phoebe knelt down, and glanced over the chair just checking to see if she had missed something when she saw a bright pink bag tucked between some of the textbooks on the bookshelf. Her brows furrowed further, because she knew that was Anya’s bag, the one that had gone missing when Phoebe was taking Michael to the office.

Tugging it from where it was wedged, Phoebe stood back up, looking over it curiously. When both hands tightened on it, her eyes snapped closed as a premonition swam into her head.

There was a dark figure chanting over a bowl, a picture of three girls inside a book in front of her. The figure waved its arms, sprinkling something into the bowl before dropping in the tube of lipstick, and for a brief second, Phoebe saw her face.

Tina.

Phoebe gasped and nearly dropped the bag.

She scrambled around desks, nearly falling on her face more than once as she tried to get to the door. By the time she got to the hall, though, looking frantically in both directions, it was too late. Tina was already gone.

She barely remembered to grab her own purse and Anya’s before running out to the parking lot.

 

(-:-)

 

Prue kind of expected for the entire family to be holed up when she got home. They’d been witch hunting all day, and they were only down to a few hours to find her. If she had to guess, they were starting to try the magic ways to find the witch. Phoebe and Piper would be debating still how to best intimidate them, and Sam would be keeping an eye on Anya.

She was almost right.

She just didn’t anticipate that the witch had already been found, and that Dean had already broken out his arsenal.

And that was why when she got home, she felt her stomach drop when she saw the guns lined up across the table. There were only a few. Three of them were shotguns, while the ones he got out for he and Sam were the ones that were more precise rifles and pistols. She walked in while he was handing a crow bar over to Phoebe, who looked less than pleased.

Piper was hovering over Sam’s shoulder as he clicked away on Phoebe’s laptop. Anya was sitting on the couch uncomfortably.

“What’s going on?” Prue asked, putting down her purse as she got a few steps further into the living room.

Dean looked over, and seemed to frown. “Phoebe found out who the witch is,” he said grimly. “Sam is looking up her address.”

“And the guns?”

“We can’t go in without weapons.”

Phoebe made a noise in the back of her throat. “Come on Dean, there’s still a chance we can convince her to stop.”

He picked a shotgun off of the table without even considering the suggestion, and walked over to hand it to Prue. For a second, the eldest cousin just held onto it with one hand. She wasn’t even entirely sure how to hold the weapon. The idea of shooting it made her look up at Dean and shake a little. “Ah…Dean…I don’t…”

Dean put a hand up to silence her. “I know. But until you do, you need something,” he assured. “It’s only loaded with rock salt, so it’s nothing lethal. At the very most it’ll distract her until I can get in and finish the job.” He sounded calm enough, but, the way he said the last part was almost bitter.

She moved her hands on the gun, picking it up like she had seen in western movies, but it still felt awkward in her hands. It just wasn’t right. “I don’t even know how to hold it Dean,” she insisted. “Can’t I just use my powers for protection.”

“We are not relying on our powers for this,” Dean replied, pretending to laugh. This time the statement came out _entirely_ bitter, and after sharing a glance with Piper, she understood something else had happened.

An internal groan nearly made it out of Prue’s throat, but she put the gun down and moved to stand behind Sam with Piper. “So who’s the witch?”

Sam looked a little sad when he said the word _Tina_ , and Prue recalled that she was actually a friend of his. Not a close friend, but someone that she had seen on parent-teacher night, and when Sam went to the movies.

Prue also looked at Anya. The blonde didn’t seem to be fond of Tina, and she did look more than a little guilty.

“Why’s she after you?” she decided to ask.

Anya sighed a little. “She was one of Jenae’s favorite people to pick on,” she said, not raising her head from the spot she was staring at on the floor. “Last week she spent an entire day laughing about Tina’s weight. She’s not even that fat. Jenae just liked picking on her. Yesterday Amber called her ugly.”

She lowered her head, though. Prue narrowed her eyes. “And I guess there’s more going back a few years,” Prue guessed. “What did you do to her?”

Anya didn’t respond, but Sam didn’t give her the chance to answer. “Alright, I’ve got the address. Not too far away from here.”

On the other side of the room, Dean was sliding his pistol into a thigh holster. “Great, let’s go then.”

“I still don’t think we need the weapons,” Phoebe said.

There was a pause, but Prue reluctantly had to agree with Dean. “Phoebe, she’s not a witch like us. She’s already killed twice, and she’s not going to have any qualms about killing us to protect herself.”

Phoebe still looked disappointed, but she started towards the door with the crowbar in hand. Prue picked the shotgun back up, and Dean grabbed a second gun to go with his pistol. He glanced back at Piper and Sam, who were going to stick around and take care of Anya if they could.

“Take care,” Piper said nervously.

Dean tried to give her an assuring smile, but it did nothing of the sort as he followed Phoebe and Prue out the door.

Sam had been right about it not being far. The drive didn’t take more than ten minutes, and when they pulled up to the house, the sun had just pulled over the horizon.

In the fading light, Tina’s row house looked as peaceful as anything else on the block. There weren’t any cars in the driveway, though, and from what they could tell every light in the house was turned off.

Phoebe looked out the side window nervously before looking up to Dean. “Okay,” she muttered. “No one’s home, I guess…”

But just in time, a dim light began shining from one of the top bedrooms. It glowed orange, and shadows started dancing over the window panes. Candle light.

“Or not,” Dean said. “Parents must be out for the night.”

“Is that good or bad?” Prue asked.

“Good for us, bad for her,” Dean said, before turning off the car.

Prue was the first one to get out, and look contemplatively up at the window. She still hoped in the back of her mind that it was nothing. Maybe she just liked candles. Maybe she didn’t think it was real.

The shadows on the other side of the window started thickening and swirling around. Prue could make out a hand. Then she could see the shadow of a knife.

“Guys look!” she blurted.

Phoebe looked up and gasped. Dean just swore.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled before rushing for the front door.

Tina had started her third ritual.

 

(-:-)

 

The others hadn’t even been gone fifteen minutes when Sam saw Anya start rubbing at her wrists. He raised an eyebrow, looking at her for a few moments. She started scratching at her chest after a moment, and at her neck, over her stomach and down her arms.

“What are you doing?” he asked when the staring started to feel really awkward.

Anya’s eyes narrowed a little, and she pulled herself off of the couch to scratch at her back. “Something doesn’t feel right,” she said. “My skin is…it feels weird, like it’s too small…It itches.”

Sam’s eyes widened a little. “Hey, don’t scratch at it,” he warned, moving over and grabbing her hands. “It could be whatever Tina is doing…”

Touching her wrists, she felt too warm. Her arms started shaking when she couldn’t scratch.

“What would the point of a spell be that would make me feel itchy?” she protested.

“You scratch at yourself long enough and you’ll bleed to death just like Amber,” he said direly, only for Anya’s eyes to widen.

 

(-:-)

 

It took them a few minutes, but Tina’s front door eventually succumbed to Dean’s lock picking skills, and the three Halliwells stormed to the staircase, hoping that they weren’t already too late. Muffled chanting was already audible from this far away. At least it wasn’t over yet.

They wasted no time getting through the door, all three barging in without checking to see what would be inside. They immediately saw her, though, on the center of the floor, kneeling on a rug. A rabbit was hanging on a rope from the ceiling fan, dripping blood into a big orange mixing bowl. A spell book lay in front of her knees as she dropped herbs into the bowl.

The most terrifying part of the girl’s room wasn’t the dead rabbit whose blood she had spilt, though. No. What freaked Dean out the most was that her walls were painted pink. A purple canopy hung over the white bed frame, and a patchwork quilt in bright pastels was laid out underneath it. The walls were covered in frames shaped like white flowers, holding pictures of friends from school. Sam and Brady were even in one or two. Even the altar she had set up was all on top of a purple rug shaped like a butterfly.

This girl was a witch, he understood. But this girl was also a stupid kid. A naïve little girl that had just had too much at school. He was really going to hate himself when this was over.

Tina snapped from her chanting and immediately looked shocked not quite knowing what to do. “Wha-what are you doing in my house?!” she shrieked at them.

“Stopping you from killing another innocent person,” Prue said, holding up her hand threateningly. “Stop what you’re doing now and we won’t have to hurt you.”

The girl scoffed, and for a split second she looked like she was going to stand, but then, she spat a word in some garbled ancient language, and the three of them flew against the wall before falling flat on their faces. Dean groaned a little, and scrambled to get his shotgun back. Prue was struggling to get up right, her gun clung sloppily to her chest.

“Innocent?” Tina said, her voice hysteric as she stood up. “Those innocent people have been making everyone’s lives miserable! Do you know some of the things they’ve done at school?”

“We know that they’ve made things hard,” Phoebe argued, her voice sad and understanding as she tried to stand up. The crowbar was still in her hand, yet she couldn’t bring herself to try and swing it. “But this isn’t the way to fix it! You can’t keep hurting people!”

“The hell I can’t!” Tina shouted before letting out another line of words in the dark magic. There was another force that dragged away from the wall this time, and while it sent the three Halliwells back to the floor, Dean and Prue’s shotguns went flying across the room. One of them went off, but it didn’t hit Tina. Phoebe’s crowbar scuttled across the floor and under the bed harmlessly.

“We’re serious!” Dean shouted, starting to pull himself up while one hand went to grab his pistol. “Take the out while you still have the chance!”

“Maybe I’ll just take you out instead,” Tina growled, before more magic words poured from her mouth.

“Please, Tina!” Phoebe pleaded as she struggled to her feet. “We just want to help. You don’t have to do this! You don’t have t-“

On the T sound, her voice seemed to catch in her throat. Phoebe’s mouth started opening and closing like a fishes, and she clutched a hand to her chest as she struggled to get in a breath of air.

Prue’s face took on a panicked expression. “Phoebe…”

There were more magic words, and Dean was slammed back into the floor and held there like there was a cinderblock on his back.

“Damn it!” he shouted at Tina.

The witch only shook her head as she sat back down. “Now where was I…”

 

(-:-)

 

While Sam had said that nothing could be done if it was a hex making Anya tear at her skin, Piper had insisted that there must be some remedy they could find. She had gone upstairs to look for cortisone cream or maybe a magic remedy in a book. She hadn’t even made it past the medicine chest, though, when there was screeching downstairs.

She nearly sprinted down to the ground floor, and started to panic when she saw Anya in the middle of the conservatory, holding her stomach.

Sam was next to her, trying to see what was wrong.

“What’s going on?” Piper asked sharply, running over to where the popular blonde was sprawling.

“She’s bleeding,” Sam said. “She-she wasn’t even scratching, just all of a sudden something ripped up her stomach.”

“Anya, Anya, let us look,” Piper started saying frantically, pulling Anya so that she was laying face up. Tears were running over the sides of her face into her already disheveled hair. The lower part of her shirt was smeared with blood, and she was holding her arms firmly over the wound.

Piper felt her breathing start to go uneven. Anya just kept screaming.

 

(-:-)

 

Prue tried to rush over to her sister and help her breath, even though she wasn’t sure how. Phoebe was trying to gasp for air, but nothing came through. Her face was turning red and the longer Prue stood there, the more she understood that there was nothing she could do.

“Prue!” Dean shouted from where he was still pinned. “Distract her. Attention off me so I can shoot!”

Prue didn’t even look at him for confirmation before whirling on the witch. Her little sister was suffocating in front of her, and the reluctance Prue had felt was gone. A wave of her arm flung Tina into her nightstand. Photo-frames and lamps rattled and the drawers shook, but when Tina screamed, it was in shock. Not agony.

“Bitch!” she shouted, hesitating for half a second before scurrying back to her book.

Thankfully, Dean seemed able to stand again, and Phoebe took in a gasp of air. He drew his gun as he slid back to his feet, and pointed it at Tina just in time for another string of words to spill out.

Again, Dean was thrown against the wall, hard enough that his brain rattled in his skull and the pistol was thrown out the open door. He let out a long string of curses after falling to the floor again while Tina chanted another spell. Phoebe and Prue were both tossed into a corner.

It took a few moments for Dean to start to move again. All of his weapons were gone, and Phoebe and Prue were helpless. The look he could see in Prue’s eyes was telling him that he would have to use his powers.

“Dean…Dean you have to…” Prue started to shout.

He closed his eyes regretfully. Damn it, he had been avoiding this. Why couldn’t it have been like any other hunt…

Tina had returned to the altar and was chanting entirely focused now. The spell was almost done. The rabbit had almost been bled dry.

“Damn it kid! Listen for three fucking seconds!” he shouted.

She kept chanting.

It looked like he was out of options.

 

(-:-)

 

Anya was completely thrashing now. Sam had run upstairs and gotten some towels to try to slow the bleeding, but when he had gotten back it was only worse.

The hex had sliced into her arms now too. Both sleeves were completely torn apart, with cuts across both her lower and upper arms. Her jeans were soaked with blood. It looked like she was trying to fight against some unknown attacker, flailing all over the living room floor.

Piper was sitting near her, trying in vain to calm her down, nearly starting to cry herself in the process. “Anya,” she pleaded. “It’s going to be okay just-just…”

Sam dropped to the floor near them, looking just as freaked out. He put the towels down, not knowing at all how to help now that this was what was happening.

“Can’t you freeze her?” Sam blurted.

“I tried,” she argued. “I-I can’t right now…It…it’s not working. I can’t…” She was almost just as frantic. She really had tried while Sam was gone, but even while she normally only froze things while she was freaked out, it just hadn’t worked this time. She didn’t understand, and it was angering her because yet again their lack of control was getting in the way.

She took in a shuddered breath. “The others are the only ones that can stop this,” she said shakily, remembering that she hadn’t wanted to kill the girl any more than Prue and Phoebe had.

Watching Anya spasm on the floor changed that for some reason.

 

(-:-)

 

There was power radiating off of Tina as she reached the last few lines of her spell. Dean was barely staggering to get up, and his head was filled with dread as he thought about what he was about to do.

He had killed witches with guns before. He had killed a warlock attacking him and his family with his powers before.

He had never outright made a girl implode so that there was no trace for her family to find before.

As if his powers weren’t messed up enough.

“Damn it, kid, I don’t want to do this!” he shouted as he managed to regain his footing.

Tina was feeling arrogant at this point, though, so she looked up and let out a tiny breath. “Do what?” she scoffed. “What could you do to stop me now?”

Dean flinched, but he held up his hands and reached into the same impulse and pressure on his muscles that he had been setting off by accident for days now. He didn’t blink, he didn’t even look away as he pushed them in front of him, and for the first time, the explosion he caused was deliberate and effortless.

Tina barely had time to recognize what had happened before power burst from her gut. Her scream mixed with the bang the explosion made, and Prue and Phoebe hid their faces.

The rabbit swung from the ceiling fan lazily as the air began to settle from the spell. Prue and Phoebe looked at Dean nervously, and for a few minutes, they just stood there.

Eventually, Dean reclaimed his guns. Phoebe crawled under the bed for her crowbar. They all walked pensively to the impala again.

No one said a word.

 

(-:-)

 

Piper was getting desperate. Blood had started to pool on the floor. She and Sam had tried forcing Anya to be still, but it only resulted in Sam getting hit in the jaw and a blood stained towel being flung across the room. Tears were pooled in the corners of her eyes. They couldn’t stop this, and Anya couldn’t take much more.

But suddenly, Anya’s screaming started to lessen. She was still wailing, but she seemed to be able to breathe again, and she wasn’t flailing like something was hurting her anymore. She started to whimper words to them. “It hurts…Please, please…help me…”

Both Piper and Sam jumped into action now that she was still. Piper pressed a towel to her stomach, slowing the worst of the bleeding, while Sam did the same for her arms.

Neither of them really suggested going to the hospital, even though they knew she should see a doctor. She had lost a lot a blood. Yet, Sam was adamant that they didn’t want to bring her parents into this right now, and they would never know what to tell the doctors had happened to her.

So, the two of them worked in silence to wrap her wounds. Once she could move to sit up against the couch, they started bandaging her up. They worked for almost half an hour before the front door opened, and Dean, Prue and Phoebe solemnly walked in.

Phoebe looked pale and scared. Prue looked concerned. Dean’s face was unreadable.

“Everyone alive?” he grumbled as he walked into the living room.

Piper nodded to him, and went back to tending to Anya. Phoebe noted the puddle of blood that someone had covered up with a towel, and silently went to go find some bleach and a scrub brush.

Dean and Prue went over to check on Anya, who glanced over at them sluggishly.

“T…Tina?” she asked questionably.

Neither Prue nor Dean spoke for a moment. “We took care of her,” he eventually answered, his jaw tight.

Sam looked at the floor. Anya’s eyes filled with tears, having the sensibility to feel guilty, knowing that all of this was partly her fault.

Dean continued. “You can stay here for the night to recover, but you need to be out in the morning.” He didn’t say another word before standing up and walking to the basement.

Piper and Sam just shared a look, knowing that this had to be bad.

Prue sighed a little, and got up to follow him.

The door to the basement almost slammed in Prue’s face as she chased Dean down.

“Dean, it wasn’t your fault!” she blurted, really not knowing what else to say. That’s what it came down to, after all. He felt guilty for everything that had been happening, but it wasn’t his fault. He could hardly control it, and he couldn’t blame himself.

He just turned to face her and was about to tell her to just get out and leave him alone when she put up her hands to stop him.

“No, you are going to listen to me. Tina was hurting people. You did what you had to do to protect us. She could have killed me and Phoebe.”

“She was just a stupid kid,” Dean said in a low voice, not ready to forgive himself for killing a teenager yet. “She was being picked on Prue, and even if I gave her what she had coming-“

“No,” Prue interrupted. “You have to stop this. Tina had to be killed, whether we wanted to do it or not. Jayme-“

“Jayme has almost died because of me twice now!”

“Jayme could have died if you hadn’t dragged him out of there!” Prue argued.

“I started the fire in the first place!”

“It might have happened anyway!” Prue said. “Dean you’re a good person, the same person you were before this started-“

“Only now I can’t leave the house without hurting people!” While their voices had been getting louder through the last several sentences, this was the first time he actually yelled. His voice was deep, and hoarse with emotions he refused to show outright.

“Last week, we had to evacuate Quake because of me. This week, I destroyed the shop, I nearly killed Sam and another kid, and I actually had to completely obliterate another. All of this crap…” He trailed off, clenching his fists hard at his sides.

He turned away, telling Prue that she should leave before he really lost it. He still didn’t think it was safe, and it hurt Prue to think that.

“These powers might not be evil, but it sure as hell feels like it…”

Not knowing what else there was to say, or how else to try and convince him that it wasn’t his fault, Prue just walked forward and wrapped him in a hug. He didn’t reciprocate, but leaned a head on her shoulder, and started to drown in his distress.

 

(-:-)

 

The next day was sunny and hot. In other words: a normal day in San Francisco.

Prue’s first real day at work was more getting organized and continuing to get settled than anything. She had brought all of her reference books from the house, and the IT department was happy to set up her computer. At lunch she chatted with Laurie and Alan again over a couple of pre-packaged sandwiches, and water from the cooler down the hall. She smiled congenially at everyone, making nice with them on her second day at work.

All in all, she thought she did a good job keeping face after having hunted a witch the night before. She was still stressed from that, and still trying to figure out what to do about Dean, and still figuring out how to extend Sam’s punishment for lying to them. No one noticed, though, and that’s what she was going for.

She had actually almost forgotten that she had a date tonight, and she was a little surprised when she heard a knock on her office door. Even, so, she smiled when Andy peeked in.

“Hey,” she greeted, shoving a notepad back into her purse. “Almost ready, just give me five seconds…”

Andy just seemed to shrug. “Not like we’re in a rush,” he said congenially, as she started to slip out of her chair. “How did the thing go last night?”

The rhythm of her heart jumped when he said it. Oh god. How did he know? Why was he here talking if he knew? “L…last night?” she asked, nervously gripping the strap on her purse.

“Yeah, you said there was a thing with Sam, remember?”

Oh.

Prue pursed her lips. “Oh, that,” she said, chuckling nervously. “Not great, actually. He…” She paused finding the words in her head. “We found out about something and he’s grounded until further notice.” Alright, so that had happened before Andy called, but she might as well share the news.

“Nothing serious is it?”

She shook her head. “No,” she answered, not elaborating as they walked out of the office and towards the elevator.

“Nothing that you’ll have to run off in the middle of dinner for?”

Prue smiled in amusement, and turned to look at him as they reached the elevator. “Definitely not,” she answered, ready for just a relaxing night.

 

(-:-)

 

Despite the tragedies that had occurred, and despite how the entire school had been cruel about the deaths of Jenae and Amber, the memorial assembly Friday afternoon was almost packed.

As it turned out, while Amber was only making fun of Tina, Anya had taken the idea of honoring her friend’s death to heart, and gone to see the principal about having a small memorial service in the gym for anyone that wanted to go. Sam suspected that most of the turnout was just to get out of class, but he was there because he knew that the deaths weren’t a laughing matter.

Brady had come with him, and was zoning in and out of the service in the seat next to him. A few times he would whisper something about how the speakers were full of shit. Sam had to agree. The football player that talked about how Jenae was such a good girlfriend was only saying so because he was expected to. The teacher who said Amber was a great student knew she cheated on tests. Even when Anya got to speak, she laced her eulogy with white lies now that she understood how her friends had been so cruel.

Standing in the middle of the gym floor, she looked small and tired. Sam didn’t blame her after the night before. She was wearing all black, with long sleeves to hide the bandages that covered her arms. She was pale, and a little broken. Everyone else in the gym just assumed that losing her best friends like she had took a toll on her, and that was probably for the best.

At the end of the assembly, Sam and Brady walked out to the parking lot together.

“You’d have thought Tina would have shown up for that,” Brady said, shielding his eyes from the sun as they walked back into the daylight. “I know Amber and Jenae picked on her, but Tina still would have been nice and turned out for the memorial service.”

Sam had kept his mouth closed about Tina too. Dean had looked it up this morning, and said her parents hadn’t reported her missing yet. It had only been twelve hours, though. They might not have realized that Tina wasn’t in her room overnight. They may even have assumed she had snuck out. No one else seemed to really notice she was gone, though, and Sam wondered if that was good for them, or just kind of sad.

“Yeah, she must be sick or something,” Sam put in, looking around the back parking lot and waving when he saw Piper’s jeep. He said his goodbyes to Brady before running to the car and hopping in.

“Hey,” Piper greeted.

“Hey,” Sam replied. “I thought Dean was supposed to pick me up.”

He could tell by the way Piper wrinkled her nose that Dean still wasn’t doing great. No one was blaming him just yet, seeing that the past few days had just been one nightmare after another, but they saw troubled waters in their future if he didn’t get a handle on things soon.

“Dean’s hanging out at the shop today,” she answered. “The lot might be a wreck, but he wanted to see if he could salvage any of the equipment for the owner, or at least haul it to the scrapyard to get some cash back for the guy.”

Sam shook his head a little, looking out the windshield. “At least he has a way to try and fix what he messed up,” he said. “I’m just grounded for the next month.”

Piper shook her head. “That’s because we can’t figure out how else to punish you,” she answered. “You lied, and with all the chaos going around that just isn’t okay. We need to stick together until everything settles out again, and that means we can’t keep things from each other.”

“Piper, you saw how Dean reacted,” Sam said. “I just didn’t want to freak everyone out until they had gotten a handle on their powers, alright?”

“That isn’t a good excuse, and you know it.”

Piper pulled out of the parking lot to start driving home. After a bit of silence, she started talking again, though.

“You know, a few months ago, if someone had told me we were going to get powers, I would have thought Dean would be all for it,” she said. “Prue would have been devastated because it’s just another thing to deal with, and I would have started bawling my eyes out. But Dean would have had no problem getting control of the situation and figuring out what to do about them. I would have thought that if anyone liked being powerful it would have been him.”

Sam frowned, and lowered his eyes. With how cocky Dean could act, he understood how Piper would get that impression, but she also hadn’t been around when Dean went hunting.

“You know why Dean likes hunting with my dad, right?” he asked. “It’s not something he does because he’s power tripping from killing monsters. He hunts because he likes saving people. He likes knowing that you guys…well, that all of us are protected from monsters.”

“But he can’t do that if he thinks he’s the monster?” Piper guessed.

Sam winced. “Something like that,” he muttered.

They were quiet for another beat.

“Do you think he’ll figure it out?”

“I hope so.”

 

(-:-)

 

Dean’s hands were grimy from ashes and motor oil when he heard the groaning of an old truck outside the big garage doors. He eventually looked up, and smiled weakly when saw who it was, before standing up to go meet him.

Bobby Singer looked a little awed at the wreckage of the auto-shop as he climbed out of his old tow truck. He had been a hunter for nearly twenty years now, and he had _never_ seen this kind of magical destruction.

When the Halliwell family had gotten their powers, Bobby had been the first person Dean called. He was probably the only guy Dean trusted to take their situation seriously without being too harsh. Dean didn’t even trust his own father that far. He was a man of about forty five years old, wearing worn out flannel and oil stained jean’s that could rival Dean’s, with a trucker cap on his head and a grizzly brown beard that was starting to gray.

The important thing right now, though, was that Bobby was a great resource. The man was brilliant, with an enormous collection of texts on magic and monsters of all kinds. If he wasn’t so set on being a drunk, backwoods mechanic, Dean was pretty positive that he could teach at a university.

Moreover, when Dean had called Bobby, he had admitted to knowing Grams was a witch.

“Hey Bobby,” Dean greeted, not bothering to wipe the oil off of his hands as he walked over to join Bobby next to his truck.

“Jesus, boy, what happened here?”

A tiny, entirely un-amused laugh came out of Dean’s throat as he looked back. The metal all over the shop was black and burnt, and all of the equipment inside was probably ruined. “This,” he began shakily, “is what happens when you give a guy the power to blow stuff up with his hands.” He tried to make it sound like a joke, but when Bobby looked at him, it was obvious that he didn’t buy it. So Dean coughed. “What’ve you got for me?”

Bobby reached in through his truck window and pulled a manila folder out, holding it up definitively. “Here ya go: all the research I did on witches when I found out about your Grams,” he said.

Dean smiled a little as he took the folder. Bobby was technically a friend of John’s, a man he had met on the road one day when the boys were young, and who he occasionally met up with for a few hunts. Yet at some point in the mid-eighties, John had needed to make an emergency run back to San Francisco in the middle of a hunt, and Bobby had come into company with Penny Halliwell.

None of the kids had really gotten it when they were younger, but Grams and Bobby had made quick friends during that visit, despite the decade or so of an age gap. They could talk about just about anything together, and more disturbingly they seemed to even flirt a little, which wasn’t _normal_ for their grandmother, especially towards a man who said he hunted large game for a living.

Now that they knew what he _actually_ hunted, and that Grams was a witch, it suddenly made a lot more sense that they would have had a lot to talk about. He had popped in and out of the manor a lot over the years.

Dean flipped open the folder, and wasn’t surprised to see that it was thick with print copies of pages from various ancient texts. It wasn’t as thick as it could have been, but it wasn’t something Dean was going to read here and now.

“Cliff’s Notes version?” he asked hopefully.

Bobby smiled lightly. “Your powers ain’t from any demons if that’s what you’re askin,” he said, hoping it would be of some consolation. “Powers like yours apparently come from the same unearthly power-source that all other magical beings get it from, both good and bad. You, Sam and the girls just have the ability to tap into it.”

Even with that weight off of Dean’s mind, knowing that their souls were safe from having their souls harvested, it didn’t actually make him feel any better. He looked up and smiled though. “Thanks man, that’s good to know at least…”

Bobby still caught on to what he was thinking, and he frowned a little while he pulled something else from his truck. “Also brought that book ya asked for,” he said, sounding like he was regretting bringing it.

The book on the other hand made Dean feel a bit relieved. He wasn’t the research monkey Sam was, but he had helped Bobby out now and again too. Once or twice he had looked up potion recipes for him, and he had a good enough memory that one of the mixtures in the book had come to mind immediately when they had gotten their powers.

He opened his mouth to say thank you again, but Bobby obviously didn’t want to hear it. The older man put his hand up to stop him before he could even open it. “Now don’t go doin’ something stupid with it,” he warned. “Just cause you cain’t control it now doesn’t mean you won’t ever be able to. Not if you don’t give it some time.”

“Just want it for reference, Bobby,” Dean said, smirking a little at how paranoid the man could be. He clapped the man on the shoulder. “Thanks for comin’ down.”

Bobby wasn’t buying the line, but he sort of had other places to be. The Changelings in Baja weren’t going to torch themselves. “Passin’ through anyway, kid,” he responded, before starting back to the truck. He climbed in and started the engine wordlessly, but leaned out the window for one last reminder. “Tell the others I said hi.”

Dean nodded, and waved a little as Bobby pulled away, and then looked to the book in his hand. It was old and worn, burnt orange in color. The once gold embossed tile on the cover was now only faintly readable as a reading primer, but Dean knew when he opened it, it would be a handwritten collection of spells and potions from an eighteenth century healer in New England.

The pages at the front were dry and worn, all of them unnumbered, as he flipped through, eventually reaching the potion he had remembered.

Dean had to give Bobby his credit. It was a shame the man didn’t have any kids of his own, because Bobby had the knack of knowing when any of the Halliwells was about to do something that they had been told not to.

He looked at the potion for another minute before snapping it shut and going to throw both of the items Bobby had given him into the Impala, but the book still fell open to that page as he walked back into the garage.

_How to Bind a Dangerous Power_


End file.
